F1 Paint and Livery?

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So who exactly paints all of the F1 cars? Do they have to use special paints or something? I'm thinking that even a layer of paint spread over an area is bound to be heavy. Are F1 cars required to be painted even if they have no sponsors whatsoever?
 
I don't know the answer for sure, though I do not remember there being anything in the technical or sporting regulations requiring that cars be painted.

But I'd speculate that regardless of if cars are required to be painted or not in modern F1, that it would be done anyways to smooth the surface of the car for lower drag.

The weight it adds doesnt matter since all teams are adding ballast to the cars anyways to meet the minimum weight requirement of 605kg dry. Though one might argue that without the added weight of paint, more ballast could be added to have greater effect on the car balance.


I'm just quickly reading a few sections of the sporting and technical regulations now to see if there's any mention of paint.

edit:
from Sporting regulations

CAR LIVERY

60) The provisions of the Code relating to national colours shall not apply to the Championship. Both cars entered by a competitor must be presented in substantially the same livery at each Event, any change to this livery during a Championship season may only be made with the agreement of the Formula One Commission.
In order that the cars of each team may be easily distinguished from one another whilst they are on the track, the on board cameras located above the principle roll structure of the first car must be predominantly fluorescent red and the second car fluorescent yellow.

61) Each car will carry the race number of its driver (or his replacement) as published by the FIA at the beginning of the season. This number must be clearly visible from the front of the car.

62) The name or the emblem of the make of the car must appear on the front of the nose of the car and in either case be at least 25mm in its largest dimension. The name of the driver must appear on the external bodywork and be clearly legible.
Click to expand...

So, nothing there saying the car has to be painted, apart from the red/yellow on the roll structure, and decals for driver name and number.
Everyone should be familiar with regulation 60 from the dispute in 1999 about BAR's paint schemes when they wanted to have Villeneuve and Zonta racing with different liveries on their cars. (Villeneuve's car was to have the Lucky Strike livery, and Zonta's was to have 555 if I remember everything correctly)
 
The only thing I really found was stuff about the Tobacco companies, and that's not what I'm asking about. I want to know about the actual process as well.
 
I'd say that these days every F1 car will have at least some sponsors. Those hundreds of millions of dollars they spend each season has to come from somewhere. I doubt they use as many layers of paint as they do in production cars - therefore the amount of paint they use is probably fairly light. A few cans of spray paint don't really weigh that much do they?
 
That article linked by Boundary Layer mentioned differences not being as apparent on TV as in real life. The story goes that TV is where we get the Marlboro flourescent red. Marlboro's original color on the Texaco-Marlboro McLarens of the '70s was a plain red, like their box. When viewed on TV, it was a rather dull color. Eventually the flourescent red was used, which stands out on TV, and almost hurts in person!
 
Racecar Engineering has a small article on the subject of livery in the latest issue, focusing on the problems of actually painting the cars, such as drag and weight.

A number of race teams (in a range of motorsport) are moving away from paint to use pre-printed and cut plastic film, it cuts down on the drag issues and weight in quite a significant way.

I will see if I can dig out more info when I get home and can have a look at the actual article.

Regards

Scaff
 

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